GOP: FYI

Dear GOP:
My period started today. Thought you'd like to know, since these things seem to be crucial to the nation's economic recovery, and, goes without saying, national security.

I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of the globs of blood and tissue that fell into the toilet bowl just now when I went to pee (and discovered I was bleeding). I was a little thrown off by it, since my cycle seems to have gone from being 30-32 days long, before my last pregnancy, to 26 days long. Woops!

Also, I was a little frazzled because someone was ringing the doorbell, and I'm the only one home at the moment -- well, my 17-month-old is also here, but he's napping, and I didn't want the insistently-ringing doorbell to wake him! I'm also at my mom's house, and the only menstrual supplies I could find were thong pantiliners. Which, had you seen what the toilet bowl looked like after a half a minute of my sitting on it, were NOT going to cut it...

Anyway, just wanted to keep you abreast of the activities of my uterus!

Love,
Criss.

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"Amurrica" was founded on...

Yesterday I was at a red light behind a truck proudly displaying a bumper sticker that read:

America was founded on 

IN GOD WE TRUST.

Um, NO. It wasn't, you ignorant cow.

You know what "America" -- the United States of, to which I assume your ignorant sticker is referring, not the continent of America (though your claim would be closer to accurate if you were referring to the continent of America, you know, with the whole "God, gold, and glory" thing... but I am giving you way too much credit, aren't I?) -- was actually founded on?

Well, there was that whole, "We don't want the King to force us to join his church and follow his religion" thing, for one. And then there was that whole "Taxation without representation" thing.

Hmm... speaking of passing laws that affect a specific group of people without letting that specific group of people have a say in the matter...

I'm sorry, what was that you were saying, about getting back to the values this country was founded on?

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On babies "choosing"

I had to share Tanya N.s comment from the Facebook discussion I was sort-of following:

If unborn babies could see into their future and decide if they wanted to be born or not, I would be all for letting them decide. Since they CAN'T, it's up to their mother to make the best decision they can for them.

No baby chooses to be conceived or born. And again, I don't believe that aborted babies CARE that they didn't "have a chance" or not. To me, that is a projection of feelings that just don't exist...

Exactly.

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Abortion: Totally Just Like A Spare Tire

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Birthing Rights ARE Reproductive Rights

So now that I'm a momma, I'm all into the online birthing communities, too. Birthing rights and all that jazz... which is really just a subset of reproductive rights. My body, my choice: I get to choose how to birth my baby. I have a right to birth in a hospital, or a birthing center, or at home. I have a right to have a midwife, and a doula, if I want them. Makes sense, no?


Women need to be informed about their choices, what options they have when they birth. They need to know the risks of epidurals, episiotomies, and whether or not these are actually necessary (or desirable). They have a right to have an IBCLC available to help with any breastfeeding issues.


As I saw tweeted the other day, "Pro-choice" and "Trust Women" doesn't just apply to abortion -- it damn well applies to birth, too. The problem is that the conversation is so often derailed into "UR A MURDERERRR!!!" by the pro-"life" side so we don't get to talk about any real issues, we just spend our time pointing out their lies and fallacies.


Most women who have had an abortion either already have children or will have them in the future (when they're ready). "Women who have an abortion" and "women who have a baby" are not two separate groups. They're a Venn diagram, with a huge overlap in the middle.


We want the same thing: respect for women when it comes to their bodies. When and how to be pregnant. When and how to birth. When and how to feed their children.


Yesterday I saw the Ronald Reagan quote about how "everyone who is for abortion has already been born." I've seen it before, and ignored it, because it's a stupid quote pretending to be "clever." Unborn entities don't have opinions, so they can't be "for" (or against) anything. Plenty of people who have "already been born" wish they had not. Oftentimes they commit suicide. Or they turn to drugs or alcohol to dull the pain of living.

And plenty more of us would not have cared if we'd been aborted. You know why? BECAUSE FETUSES DON'T HAVE COGNITIVE PROCESSES OR THE ABILITY TO CARE.


The quote was not blog-post-worthy. What was, was where I saw it: I saw this quote on a birthing rights community page.


Those same women who are appalled that a doctor would force a C-section on a woman... are saying it's okay to force an entire pregnancy on her??


Here's my (first) response:


I'm surprised to see an anti-abortion statement posted today, when yesterday there was a question from a mom about doing a D&C for a molar pregnancy. I still don't know what a molar pregnancy is (haven't had time to Google it), but I know what a D&C is. It's one method of terminating a pregnancy (usually done in the second trimester, if I recall correctly). I had one, when I was faced with an unwanted pregnancy, just over a decade ago. 

I have seen other posts (don't think it was on this page, but on another parenting/birthing-rights page) about moms seeking advice about a D&C after a miscarriage or stillbirth (to make sure all the tissue is actually out of the body, to prevent infection and/or other complications).

There are a bazillion different reasons why a woman may need to terminate a pregnancy. Sometimes it's because she's not ready to be a mother. Sometimes it's because she's not capable of being a mother -- financially, or mentally/emotionally, or physically. Sometimes it's because something is wrong with the pregnancy or the fetus -- like an ectopic or molar pregnancy. Sometimes it's because the fetus is already dead, but her body hasn't miscarried properly and removed all the tissue. I'm not and obstetrician, so I can't even begin to list all the medical reasons for an abortion.

Whatever that woman's reason is, SHE knows what's best for her. It's her body. She also knows what is best for that potential child -- deciding whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term is the first parenting decision a woman makes. Please respect her choice.

Just like a doctor doesn't have the right to force a woman to have a c-section if she doesn't want one, no one has a right to force a woman to have a pregnancy if she doesn't -- or can't -- want it.

One of the reasons the women who posted here and on other pages asking for advice on whether they should have a D&C for a doomed (or already terminated) pregnancy is because abortion has been so demonized in our society. It's a medical procedure. A necessary one. No woman makes the decision to abort a pregnancy lightly -- and any woman who would, is not apt for or perhaps capable of motherhood. Motherhood begins with pregnancy.

If you want to reduce the number of abortions that happen because of unwanted pregnancies, call your legislators and tell them to fund Planned Parenthood. Tell them to make birth control fully covered by insurance. Tell them to make hospitals stock emergency contraception in the ER for rape victims. Call your school board and your legislators and make comprehensive sex ed mandatory curriculum starting in middle school.

But don't criminalize or demonize abortion. You don't know that woman's story. You can't imagine what SHE is going through, because you are not her and you have not lived her life or survived the trauma that may be leading her to make that decision -- even for a very wanted pregnancy.


--


I went back and wrote some more comments (in response to one particularly rabid anti-choicer), which I may post here as their own mini-blogs, or I may dump in the comments here. Haven't decided yet.

But right now, my baby's calling me.


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"Selling" breast milk

From the weekly Our365 email I get about my baby's development (courtesy of the people who took newborn photos in the hospital):

Yes, of course. You'd find it right next to the gallons of blood and sperm.

First of all, we don't package and sell breast milk as if it were, say cow's milk. It's distributed by donor milk banks, you know, same as we do with blood. And sperm. 

Because there are so few donor banks (and the requirements are so strict -- I can't donate milk because I'm on antidepressants that are safe to take while nursing, but those meds prohibit me from donating), and because the fees to use donated milk are so steep and insurance companies put so many restrictions on who is "worthy" of receiving the little human milk there is available, some moms contribute to programs like Eats on Feets, or share their milk informally with a mom friend in need.

Yes, there have been instances of moms asking for a fee for this service (I don't have any links, but I saw people asking about it on one of the birth/parenting Facebook pages I follow, so it must have happened, at least once...), but it's not a money-making business, as Kristina C. makes it sound. It's "donating breast milk," not "selling" it.

And, Kristina C., if you're going to use an analogy... well... use the analogy. We donate and distribute human breast milk same as we do human blood or sperm: through banks, with medical screenings, and you must apply to receive the product. We don't sell blood or sperm at Stop & Shop either, so if your child is bleeding out after a car wreck, are you going to refuse the blood transfusion that could save hir life?

Birth Control Injection For Men

OK, I admit I did not read the WHOLE article (it's long, and I have a baby stirring in his basket, he's about to wake up and my Internetz time will be up); I saw something on Twitter or Facebook about this the other day, but that article seemed wonky, and I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. This article has, like, sciency-talk in it and stuff.

If this is for real, then... DUDE.

If it IS 100% effective, and reversible, then... DAMN. MonkeyBoy will be strongly encouraged to get this injection when he's 13. He can reverse it when he's ready to have kids, if he and his partner choose to make babies.

And speaking of, he's awake. So I'll leave you with the article: The Revolutionary New Birth Control Method For Men. Go read, be amazed, get excited, and find that doctor in San Francisco who wants to bring this to the FDA. Let's make this happen! Soon!!

"About half of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned. Come up with a better contraceptive and the likely results are all good: fewer unwanted kids, fewer single parents, and fewer abortions."

Abstinence-Only Driver's Ed

After the rousing success of abstinence-only sex ed programs, the only logical next step is implementing this highly successful method in other areas, such as driver's education programs. No?

It would probably look something like this:

Or, also, like this.

Please DON'T thank me for menstruating, thankyouverymuch.

Have you seen this? Josh wants to "thank me" for menstruating.

I was, shall we say, a little miffed that a cis man, who does not and will not ever menstruate, felt it was "cute" to tell me what to do with my body and my periods. But then I read the comments, and was appalled at the number of (cis) women who were THANKING him for it, praising his "bravery," and who thought it was so "great" that a cis man was telling them this...

The post has a line or two about how great human bodies are because of all the wonderful things they do, but it does not praise cis women's bodies -- nor does it ever thank cis women for doing the job of menstruating (and everything that comes along with/results from it: pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding). Instead, it just tells us that we should menstruate regularly, because in this dude's opinion that's the way things out to be.

There's no medical reason for me to shave my armpits, either -- should I stop doing that?

Actually, since the author of the post chose to equate menstruation with defecation (it would be more convenient for if you only "took a crap" once a month), let's follow that line of thought... you do realize that once-a-month crap is a 24-hour drip for five to seven days, right? How convenient would that be for you, Josh?

I have very easy periods, for the most part. I hardly get cramps, unless it's really cold. I'm paranoid about using tampons, because every box of tampons comes with the little paper with the warnings on toxic shock syndrome, and especially when I was teaching I had a hard time finding the time to change my tampon during the school day, so I often kept the tampon in longer than "recommended," making me sure I was going to drop dead from TSS any day now. (Once, when I got back to my classroom a few seconds after the bell, one of the assistant principals was outside my door, announcing to his walkie-talkie that I was MIA. I really, really wanted to explain to him exactly why I was late.) I'm not a big fan of pads, because after the second or third straight day the dry-weave starts to irritate your skin, y'know?

Now that I'm older and wiser I'm probably going to invest in a Diva Cup once "Aunt Flo" returns, so my minor inconveniences will be even less of an issue. But, you see, I know how lucky I am.

Some women have irregular periods, and take hormonal birth control to help them regulate their bodies, to help them take control of their bodies. The best thing about being on birth control was knowing when I was going to start bleeding -- because, you know, it's nice to know when bodily fluids are going to start oozing out of you. It gets messy if you don't take proper precautions, you see...

Now, notice how, sometime between two and four years of age, we learn how to control the sphincter that releases crap? And you learn how to keep it closed, holding the crap in, until you can get to a toilet, to take your crap? I don't know how up you are on biology and how uteri and cervixes and stuff work, but we don't have a handy-dandy contraption like that one in our vagina. The blood just comes out; we can't control it. So it's nice to know when it's going to start coming out, so we can wear a diaper, or plug up the hole.

And then there's those cis women's (and trans men's) bodies that work differently than, say, your wife's. Some cis women's and trans men's bodies don't do well with the whole menstruating thing... I know, I know, hard to believe, since we cis women are put on this Earth for the sole purpose of being impregnated by lovely cis men such as yourself. The idea of a cis woman's body not being 100% ready and willing to get pregnant and bear children for you is, well, preposterous!

Absurd as it may be, it happens to be true.

For those people, who have to call in sick to work because of what menstruating does to their body, the idea of fewer periods probably makes a heck of a whole lotta sense.

But you know what makes even more sense? Letting, like, doctors and other medical professionals decide what is and is not "safe." Oh, yeah -- and letting the person in question decide what ze wants to do with hir body, and which hormones ze does and does not want to put in it.

Yes, some people have bad reactions to the pill or other forms of hormonal birth control. I dare you to find a medication that doesn't have a bad reaction for somebody. And for every story you can give me of a person who had a terrible experience with hormonal birth control, I can find a person who had a terrible experience with menstruation, and who needs those hormones to "fix" the problem. I can probably also find you ten people who took those same hormones and had wonderful experiences.

We put tons of chemicals and hormones into our bodies every day, the vast majority of them not medically or biologically necessary. Maybe the author of the post above does not eat any meat or fish, or if he does he raises it himself, and grows all of his food in his own backyard, watering it with collected rainwater or water pumped from his own private, not-flouride-inated well... if so, bully for him. He still has no business telling me what I should or should not do with or to my reproductive organs, or how happy I should be about the things they do on a monthly basis.

Now, if he wanted to write a post actually thanking me for menstruating, instead of telling me how grateful I should be for it, then that's something I'd gladly read. (No, I won't hold my breath.)

Parenting Choices, via MTV's No Easy Decision

(Phone posting, so please pardon the typos.)
(Edited to add Katie's info and make linky-links)
I TiVoed MTV's No Easy Decision, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Via Facebook, I found this blog post, by Katie, one of the girls in the show.

I almost can't believe a teen [edit: she's in her early 20s. STILL.] wrote that. She expresses herself better than I could (which was a blow to my ego... But I digress). I don't know how anyone can read that and think she did not "know" what she was doing, or that she did not "think her decision through." Does she sound like someone who needed a mandatory waiting period before being allowed to get an abortion?
Those of us who have made that decision have not come to it lightly. We knew what we were doing, and why.
I love what she says about the "mothering instinct" -- it starts at pregnancy, knowing whether you are ready, or even capable, of being a mother. "Mothering" starts with pregnancy, at that moment you decide you want to become a mother; with planned pregnancies, it starts even earlier. I made several choices about my diet, lifestyle, medications, etc. when Freddy and I started trying to get pregnant. I stopped drinking sodas (for the MOST part) and eating candy (and if you know me, YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF A SACRIFICE THAT WAS), got off my "crazy pills" (though I quickly got back on them when I realized how much I needed them -- see, already making parenting decisions, for the wellbeing of the potential child growing inside of me), etc.
Parenting starts before birth, and it starts before conception. This is why we use birth control. Guess what? Birth control, like pretty much everything in life, is not infallible. Sometimes it fails, it doesn't do what it's supposed to or go the way we want it to. So we adjust: for some women, who are not ready to be parents, who are not ready to be pregnant, or who know they never want either of those, that means terminating the pregnancy.
When MonkeyBoy was born, my doctor ordered an echocardiogram to check out his heart, because of the "prominent aorta" they'd seen in one of my last sonograms. Thankfully, the echo showed everything was as it should be. But if it hadn't, if the doctors had found something wrong with MonkeyBoy's heart, guess what?
Freddy and I would have made a parenting decision and talked to the doctors to figure out the best way to "fix" it. We wouldn't have said, "Oh, well, must be God's Will! After all, He giveth and He taketh away, right?" and let the baby die.
God's Will, if you take the time to read Genesis, is for us to use the first gift He gave us: our free will*. That means making choices. Sometimes, that choice is abortion.

And that's okay. In fact, it's a responsible parenting choice.

*Edit: I was going to elaborate on the "free will" thing, but as I started writing I realized it needs to be a post on its own. So watch for that, coming soon.

Why I Chose to Have an Amniocentesis

I want a natural birth: no drugs, no cutting, no steampunk-wannabe machinery like forceps or vacuums. Biologically/evolutionarily speaking, my body was made to grow fetuses and birth them, to ensure the survival of the species; I trust God knew what He was doing when He designed my body (wide birthing hips and all), so I want a chance to do it the way God and nature intended before a doctor comes in with drugs, needles, and a scalpel. (I understand medical interventions are sometimes necessary, and if I happen to be one of the 10% or so of women who need a medical intervention, I will be very glad for the technology. I just want to find out if I NEED it before it's automatically used on me.)

Because I want a natural birth, I'm reading hippie-granola books by midwives (Ina May's Guide to Childbirth) and other natural-birth advocates/supporters (The Birth Book); and maybe that's why they seem to be slightly anti-testing. Both books, while presenting the issue in a way that respects the reader's opinion, warn against much of the tests that OBs routinely run on pregnant women during their prenatal care, including amniocentesis.

Ina May cites the risk of miscarriage due to an amnio to be 1 in 300; Dr. Sears cites it as 1 in 200. Ina May's book was published in 2003, Dr. Sears's in 1994 (my copies, at least). Partly due to these numbers (and I'd heard even before reading the books that amnios can result in miscarriage), I told myself, and family members, that I was not going to get one. (Besides, who really wants to have a huge needle stuck in their stomach? Poking holes in my uterus and amniotic sac, and disturbing my fetus?)

Even after we had the 12-week NT screen, which showed a thick neck (3.9 mm) and no nasal bone -- soft signs of Down Syndrome -- I was still against an amnio. When the bloodwork came back not denying the original findings, I was still against it.

When the doctor first told us that the sonogram showed the possibility of a chromosomal abnormality, it was a shock. It was different and it was an unknown; I can't recall exactly what happened in what order in those days, but neither Freddy nor I were worried about the possibility of a child with Down Syndrome -- the problem where the other two types of abnormalities, which are fatal 95% of the time and my doctor, who works with the Baylor Health Care System, "a Christian ministry of healing," said even that religious hospital would recommend (and perform) an abortion.

(Dear Antis: if any of you are still lurking, I know medical facts make your heads hurt... but that doesn't mean medical facts are not true. Thank you.)

I wanted confirmation that we were NOT looking at Trisomy 13 or 18 (the almost-always fatal ones, hardly carry to term); Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) was not a concern/problem.

It became even less of a concern as we educated ourselves on Down Syndrome and talked to people about it. A friend of Freddy's has a niece with Down Syndrome, and her words stuck with me the most: "I want to say I'm sorry, but there really isn't anything to be sorry about."

Four weeks after the initial shock, we finally had an appointment with a geneticist. I still said I did not want to have an amnio, so part of my wondered why we were even going to talk to the geneticist (the dude who does the amnio), but my OB said this guy would do a super-duper sonogram and look for other stuff as well -- plus, if we took a blank DVD they would record the sonogram -- so we went to the appointment.

At this point, Freddy and I were almost excited about having a child with Down Syndrome (as opposed to an "average", 46-chromosome kid). Through the parents of children with DS we had met, we'd gotten a glimpse into that loving and supportive community. We were no longer afraid, now that we knew more about it and understood what it would entail. Raising a kid is not all rainbows and roses no matter what kind of kid you have; you're going to have challenges no matter what. Some of our challenges were going to be different than what we had originally anticipated, but we were okay with that.

We also realized that if anyone was going to have a child with special needs, this was the family that child should be born into. Freddy's sister just got her Master's in Special Ed, and is a Diagnostician for one of the school districts around here. My mom's a child therapist. My brother's getting his Master's in [I forget the title but it's] working with children with special medical needs -- and, interestingly, he had just finished a research paper on mothers of children with Down Syndrome. My sister is a Montessori teacher, who reminded me that Maria Montessori began her method working with children with mental retardation and other special needs (and, under her care and instruction, these "deficient" children began to out-perform the "regular" children).

We have family close by to help and support us, and on top of all the informational resources built in to our family, we have the means to afford the child's medical needs (physical, intellectual, and emotional). If anyone was going to have a child with special needs, why should it NOT be us, when you look at it that way??

When we met with the genetic consultant, she went over our test results in more detail. She said that given our sonogram and bloodwork, we had a 1 in 5 chance of having a child with Down Syndrome. We had not heard those numbers before; I think (please note that what she said and what we heard could be two totally different things -- there was a big wall of emotional static through which her words had to travel) my OB said we had a possibility of having a child with Down Syndrome, and I guess I'd assumed that was doctor-speak* for "you're having a kid with Down Syndrome."

*doctor-speak being the result of years of malpractice lawsuits and if-I-say-anything-too-definitively-I'll-get-sued-either-way-so-everything-is-iffy. Please note I am not blaming doctors for doctor-speak; that's a result of our sue-happy culture. I am not blaming lawyers, either, because lawyers don't hire themselves.

A 1 in 5 chance was different. Maybe we were making all this fuss for nothing.

1 in 5 was actually a pretty small chance. 20%. We could know for sure if we did an amnio, which we could do that same day, and the lady said that the chance of miscarriage was more like 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,500; for this practice, it was closer to 1 in 1,000 because this is what these doctors do all day, every day (the higher chances of miscarriage happen when the doctor doing the amnio is not properly trained or as experienced in doing them).

So the numbers we were given at the geneticist's office were quite different from the numbers I'd had in my head before the appointment. I had a lower chance of having a child with Down Syndrome than I'd thought, and a much lower chance of complications of miscarriage from doing the amnio.

When we had the sonogram (where we forgot to give the doctor the blank DVD so we didn't get it recorded... but we're going for our follow-up on Tuesday), the doctor said everything looked like it was developing at the "normal" rate, all body parts were proportional, etc. (He also pointed out all the fetus's organs, and said they were all working well... which I'm glad he said, because I couldn't see anything he pointed at. I saw the heart, because it was blinking. Everything else? No clue... that's why I'm not a doctor.)

According to what the doctor saw in the super-duper sonogram, that 1-in-5 number seemed to be leaning toward the other 4 instead of the 1.

I hate not knowing. Not knowing the sex of the baby for those 16 weeks (12, really, since the first four I didn't even know I was pregnant yet) had been bugging me enough. I like to make plans, I like to know so I can daydream about how it's going to be.

I didn't want to go around making plans for a special needs child, tell people that we might have a child with Down Syndrome, only to find out in October that nope, just kidding! I already felt like a poser because of the few people we had told and talked to about it. Like we were walking around telling this story to get attention and sympathy when we didn't even deserve it.

(And, if I was going to have a child with special needs, I was going to go around making plans. This is why we did the NT scan to begin with -- to be prepared. If we were going to have a child with Down Syndrome, I wanted to know all I could about it. I wanted to find a pediatrician who knew all about it as well. I wanted to have physical therapy scheduled from the beginning, and anything else I might need to set up for my child. I was making plans to get my blasted last four credits for my blasted Master's so I could quit my full-time job and teach part-time at one of the local colleges, so Freddy and I could work out a schedule where one of us was home with the baby and we wouldn't need daycare, but would still have a way to, like, buy food and pay the mortgage and all.)

So we did the amnio.

It took two minutes, and didn't hurt any more than drawing blood, really. Even when Freddy made me laugh WHILE THE NEEDLE WAS IN MY STOMACH.

I made a point to look at Freddy, you know, for support (in case it hurt). The doctor said that it usually hurt the father more than the mom, because the father was the one looking at the needle. Which is why I thought Freddy would look AT ME, but no. He looked at the needle, fascinated... and started making faces. Like, "ZOMG, that's HUGE!" faces. Which, if you know Freddy, he was likely to do before he even saw the needle, just to mess with me.

"It looks like a beer!"

"What?"

"No, look! It looks like he's drawing a beer! It even has a head on it and everything! Just like it's coming from a tap!"

Well, if you're making me laugh while the poor doctor tries to draw some amniotic fluid from my stomach without poking the fetus, then you can expect the fluid to be a little shaken up and bubbly, I guess.

The one surprise I had when they did the procedure was that I had to rest the next 24 hours -- as in, bed rest. No going to work the next day (even though I work in an office, relaxed setting, and I sit all day). The nurse and doctor told me before they did the procedure, and they were very accommodating about letting me come back and do it another day, when I had time to arrange for time off, etc., but I wanted to get it done then (impatient? Who, me??) and I had already taken that day off work so might as well do it.

But I was surprised that I had not heard that before; that an amnio is a two-day procedure (you get it done, you rest the whole next day). My books didn't mention it, and my OB hadn't, either (not that I'd asked about the details, but still). I'm lucky that I have a flexible job and an understanding boss, so I could call in and tell her I'd be out the next day, but I realize many women do not have that option.

If I were still in the job I had last year, teaching public school, I would not really have had that option. Leaving lesson plans for being gone one day (for the appointment) would have been hassle enough -- calling my department chair to tell her I was going to be gone ANOTHER day, and no, I didn't have lessons ready? Plus, when I went back to work at this job, I had the luxury to sit all day, and take it easy. In the classroom, I would have been expected to stand for most of every class period, walking around monitoring the students, and stand in the hallway during each passing period (where kids running in the hall and playing around with their friends can easily bump into you).

What if I worked an hourly job, in retail or food service? A) That would be TWO days of no work = no pay, and B) that's a huge amount of physical strain, when the care sheet the doctor gave me said to take it easy, no exercise, for two weeks after the procedure.

Sure, I know an amnio isn't a "necessary" procedure by the strictest definition, but it was necessary for me. I had to know what I had to prepare for. No, I was not going to abort if I found out my child was going to have Down Syndrome (and by the time we met with the geneticist we had pretty much ruled out Trisomy 13 and 18; my OB said she would have seen other signs/physical deformities if the fetus had one of those abnormalities, so that was no longer an issue), but I needed to know what to prepare for. How much my life was going to change. Other pregnant people deserve that same opportunity.

They poked me on a Tuesday, and by Friday afternoon they had the preliminary results. 46 chromosomes, two of each, no extras (except for the last one; that wasn't two of the same, it was one X and one Y).

Freddy and I both felt that a part of us was disappointed with this news. We were looking forward to the challenges, and joys, unique to having a child with Down Syndrome (and I no longer have as good an excuse to stay home, so looks like I'll still be working full-time after Troy Emmitt* arrives).

*I wanted to TWILIGHT the names and call him Emmittroy, WHICH IS SO MUCH BETTER DON'T YOU THINK??? but Freddy said no.

I am glad we went through this experience. I know there are a bazillion things that could still go "wrong" with the pregnancy, and a bazillion things that could still make Troy Emmitt a child with special needs. Now, Freddy and I know we can handle it, and we found out we can handle it before post-partum depression and the stress of living with a newborn set in. If we do find out, at birth or shortly thereafter, that Troy Emmitt has special needs, we know we can cope and we don't have to go through the same shock period we already went through. (It's still going to be a shock, I'm sure, but we know we can get through it).

Also, I'm 32 years old, will be 33 when Troy Emmitt arrives. Just two short years away from the magical age of 35, when BAD THINGS happen more regularly to pregnant women. I want at least a second child. Before all of this happened, I was a little scared of trying to get pregnant again so "old," because I was afraid of the unknowns and thought that "different" was "BAD." Now I'm not scared, because I feel I can handle it, and I know Freddy, and the rest of our families, can.

My books warn against testing because the results can often be false positives (like mine was), and this causes unnecessary stress. I had a false positive, and Freddy and I did go through a period of stress, but I don't regret it. I'm glad we did the testing, because now I know more than I did before -- not so much about the fetus/future baby, but about myself, and about Freddy.

Thankful Thursday: Planned Parenthood edition

I'm thankful for Planned Parenthood.

They were there for me when I was a starving college student with no money and no insurance. I hope they can continue to be there for the women and men who need them.

Did you know that...

• over the past 75 years, Planned Parenthood of North Texas has provided healthcare to more than 2.2 million patients?
• PPNT serves men as well as women, in 29 health centers service 57 counties across North Texas?
• the majority of PPNT's patients are 20-29 years old, earn less than $300 a week, and have no health insurance?
• PPNT is the only nonprofit family planning provider in Tarrant County?
• PPNT provides vital preventative healthcare, including:
• birth control options,
• well-woman exams,
• screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes,
• even flu shots?
• PPNT does more cervical cancer screenings than any other healthcare provider in Texas?
• PPNT educates parents, teens, educators, medical professionals, and civic and religious leaders?
• PPNT advocates for
• healthcare access and availability,
• comprehensive and confidential care,
• and accurate information about sexual health?

Well, now you do.

Feel free to do something to help.

What does TRUST WOMEN mean to you?

I don't even know how to start to answer this question. Is the answer not painfully obvious? Do we really need to spell it out for you??

Trust women. Trust us to know what we're doing. Trust us to know the consequences and effects of our actions. Trust us to know enough to make decisions for ourselves.

Trust that when we make a decision, we've thought about it. We've weighed all the options. And if this is what we decided, then there's a d@mn good reason for that.

Trust me -- I know better what's best for me than you do. Because I'm me, I live every day of my life as me. I know how I will react to the things that will happen to me -- okay, fine, I don't know the future, so I don't know exactly how I will react to something until it actually happens to me, but you know what? I know how I have reacted to everything in my life up to now... so maybe I can make a pretty darned good educated guess about how I will react to those unknowns in the future.

You, person who doesn't know me -- literally, we have never met (no, not you, people who regularly read this blog; I'm talking to the rabid antis) -- you, on the other hand, have no clue. And you know what else? You won't be there for all those unknowns; I will. So let me decide for myself what I need to have happen so that I can handle those things.

If I feel an abortion is the right choice for me, and for that potential child, then that is nobody's business other than mine and my doctor's. If you don't like it, for whatever reason, then... who cares? I don't. You know why? Because you are not involved in this.

I don't force you to do things my way -- see, I trust you to make your own decisions about yourself -- so why do you feel you have a right to force me to do things your way?

No other medical procedure has to put up with this. No, wait -- that's right. Silly me.

Did you know that if you're a cis woman, you can have all sorts of operations on your breasts, and even on your vagina, without anyone batting an eyelash? But if you happen to be a trans woman, and you want to have gender affirming surgery to make your body match your self... whoops! Sorry, now we need a note from a therapist. We need to know you've talked to someone about this "radical" move you're trying to make. Yes, you need to get permission from your doctor and your therapist to do this.

To go from a B-cup to a D-cup, just because you feel like it? Sure, go ahead! No, no note. No problem.

To treat gender dysphoria? Oh, no, we can't do that. That's... different. That's not what I would do!!! You must not know what you're doing -- we must stop you! Protect you from yourself! Do you really know what you're doing? Have you thought about it long enough? Maybe we should give you a mandatory waiting period. Here, talk to a therapist about it. Because I'm sure you have not thought this through well enough. Why? I don't trust you, because you are not like me!

Really, people.

Yes, I know we're talking about things that deal with the naughty bits. We're talking about -- shh! -- S-E-X. Oh noes!

Please note: things that make you more heterosexxxy are fine. Breast augmentation, vagina tightening, vagina dying... those are fine. Because, cis women, you are, after all, little more than a sex object. (Trans women, you can't even make babies. If you're of no use to us as an incubator, what use are you? Sheesh... Oh, wait -- we'll keep you around, for those of us with fetishes. Cool.)

I really meant to write an eloquent post for Blog for Choice day, but the whole idea that I'd need to explain what it means to trust women makes me too angry (maybe I'm still channeling the main character from my novel -- I've been working on the scene where she walks into the abortion clinic). So, instead, this post just turned into an angry rant. Yes, that's what you get from me today: angry wordvomit.

What does "trust women" mean to me? It means mind your own business. Trust me to mind mine, and to take care of what I need to, responsibly.

Women's Day of Action for Health Care Reform: The Choice Movement and [Trans] Women's Health

The choice movement is not about babies or fetuses. It's about women* and their bodies.

It's about a woman's right to medication and medical care.

For the majority of women, meaning hetero cis women, "medication" translates into birth control and "medical care" translates into pregnancy care: how to have a healthy one, how to terminate one if needed, and how to avoid one in the first place.

When we talk about "women's health" we are, sadly, talking about hetero cis women, and we usually end up talking about birth control and pregnancy, even though hetero cis women do have other medical needs, not related to their reproductive organs.

Now here's the newsflash: not all women are hetero cis women. And guess what? They have medical needs too.

I am pro-choice because I have a right to tell my body what to do, not the other way around. I have a right to use birth control to make my periods regular, to reduce my cramps and other PMS symptoms, and to avoid unwanted pregnancy.

Now, for me personally, I'm lucky that my periods are pretty regular, and I don't really suffer from cramps. (I did have that one issue with the unwanted pregnancy, though.)

For me personally, I'm also lucky that what's between my legs (i.e., my sex) matches what's between my ears (i.e., my gender). That's another medical need I personally do not have. But millions of trans people do.

Just as I have a right to tell my body what to do and what not to do (by using birth control to regulate my periods or keep me from getting pregnant), a trans woman has the same right to control her body and tell it what to do and not do. And, if anything, I'd say a trans woman's needs trump my own; if worse came to worst I could control my body by not having sex or trusting the rhythm method. But a trans woman doesn't have another choice.

Disclaimer: I am new at this. I am probably going to screw up language and I know I am talking with little knowledge of trans medical needs and care. If I do screw up, please let me know, and I will correct myself.

A trans woman's body tries to act like a man's body. It tries to grow hair on her face and have a deep voice and not grow breasts or have the proper curves. Her body betrays her. The only way she can control this is with medication and/or(?) hormone therapy. She needs this medication just as much as, if not more than, I need birth control.

When we talk about women's rights and women's basic health care we need to make sure we also talk about trans women's rights and trans women's basic health care.

They may not need access to birth control, but they need access to hormone therapy (and/or other medical treatment of which I'm ignorant) if they choose to do that.

Then there's the day-to-day medical care. For me, it's things like my yearly well-woman exam, breast exams, so on and so forth. And those other things that come up randomly, like yeast infections, UTIs, etc. When any of those things comes up, I have the right and the ability to go to a doctor to get the care I need to fix the problem. Even if I don't have health insurance to help me pay for it, I know I can go to a clinic, such as Planned Parenthood, and get the care I need.

A trans woman also has the right to this, but at the moment, she does not have the ability to go to a doctor or a clinic to get the medical care she needs. Mainly her medical needs don't "match," according to cis standards, with her gender.

It's been decades now since we cis women have had to resort to the coathanger in a back alley. But for trans people, a back alley butcher with homemade tools is the only medical care they have access to. Part of the reason, I'm sure, is that insurance companies don't approve claims for Pap smears for men, or testicular cancer screenings for women. Part of the reason is doctors' offices don't know how to file paperwork for someone who was born a "man" but is now a woman. (This is a damn stupid reason, but it happens, and it's a barrier to medical care.) Part of the reason is probably that your average doctor or even your average OB/GYN doesn't know how to treat a trans person's needs.

Cis women have a specialist they can go to who knows all the details of their bodies. Why can't trans people have a specialist, a trans doctor, who specializes in treating their medical needs?

Do they even teach this stuff in medical school? I know a while back we pro-choice feminists got all up in arms about an anti-choice bill that wanted to remove the "abortion" pages from medical textbooks. Do those textbooks have any "trans" pages in them to begin with? Is this part of a med student's training? My very uninformed guess is NO.

I know it's easy for us cis women to say we're not qualified to speak up on trans issues because we don't know enough about it. We don't know what their needs are, we don't know what it's like to go through a gender transition. If we don't know what their needs are, how can we campaign for their needs? How can we advocate for their rights, when we don't know that much about the issue?

Do we allow cis men to get away with that cop-out when we're talking about cis women's reproductive rights?

So, guess what. If you don't know, learn. Find out. Ask. Engage trans women in the conversation. They're out there, and I bet they have a lot to say.

Ask your doctors and other medical professionals. They should be the experts, right? Find out if they are.

Does your primary care physician serve trans people? Are they welcome in your PCP's office?

Does your OB/GYN know how to serve the needs of trans women seeking hormone therapy? Does your OB/GYN treat trans men?

Does your local clinic offer services to trans people? Are they made to feel welcome there?

All women have a right to basic health care. This includes access to medication and medical treatment. This includes yearly exams, regular checkups, and any other specific diseases, infections, maladies, or concerns that pop up in-between. This includes birth control, pre- and post-natal care, labor, and abortions. And it also damn better include trans people's needs.

Even if the details of the execution (birth control v. hormone therapy) are different, the moral principle is the same. If you are pro-choice, as I like to proudly call myself, and fight for your right to basic medical care specific to your body and reproductive organs, then you need to also fight for a trans person's right to do the same.

We are feminists. We fight because the patriarchy has oppressed us for years, and we're not going to take it anymore. But we need to be aware that we are not the only group who has been and is oppressed, and I for one want to make sure that I am not oppressing anyone else. I don't want to do to others what has been done unto me.

If we leave trans women out of the discussions of and demands for women's health, then we are oppressing that group of people. And that goes against everything feminists fight for.

The health care reform debate has been hijacked by talk of abortion, which is sad because women's health care is so much more than that, even if we're only looking at the limited cis woman's definition of health care. But in all these talks, in all these calls and letters and petitions, can wen please include trans women? Can we let their voices be heard? They need health care reform more than any of us.

*See fourth paragraph from the end. But first, read all the paragraphs between the asterisk and the fourth paragraph from the end. And then read the last three paragraphs. All that to say, "women" means different things to different people; we need to be inclusive of all women.

My Cis Priviledge & the #ProChoice Movement

One of the pro-choice movement's favorite phrases, which we repeat often on Twitter in the "I am #prochoice because" meme*, is "Men can't get pregnant."

Sometimes we qualify the statement a little, prefacing it with "100% of the men who are anti-choice will never be pregnant." In those cases, we're saying we're referring specifically to men who identify with the anti-choice movement, and it is likely (in my uninformed opinion) that those men are cis men, who will, indeed, never be pregnant.

For those of you who don't know what "cis" means, just like I didn't until a few weeks ago, here's a definition of it courtesy of Arwyn at Raising My Boychick's glossary:

Cis is a Latin prefix meaning “on this side” or “on the same side”; it was purportedly first used in the form “cisgender” by Carl Buijs in 1995 (or 1994). Writer and professor of biology Julia Serano uses all three terms in her book Whipping Girl; she credits first learning of them from Emi at eminism.org. Cisgender and cissexual are adjectives for those who are not transgender or transsexual. Much like we refer to trans persons, we might also refer to cis persons.

These terms mean, simply, that one’s intrinsic or subconscious sex (or gender) is in accord/agreement with one’s external, physical sex/gender, and always has been. Much like the term “heterosexual” (or “straight”) when it was first introduced, some cis individuals are offended by the term; this is a nonsensical, privileged position, however: as Monica Roberts puts it so well, Cisgender is not an insult.

So, cis men will never be pregnant. We need to qualify our statement, because trans men can get pregnant. When we say, "Men can never get pregnant," we are lying, and we are excluding and oppressing trans men.

First, we cannot exclude trans men and their reality from our language and our activism, but we also need to realize that, hello, they deserve the same reproductive rights and protections that we cis women are asking for. We need to include trans men in our language and in the fight itself.

I didn't follow the story when it was breaking and I still don't know much about it now, but remember the pregnant man on Oprah? The headline on this ABC News story pretty much says it all: "It's My Right To Have A Kid, Pregnant Man Tells Oprah." D@mn straight it's your right! That's what the pro-choice movement is about: nobody has a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your uterus. No matter what your gender is -- if you have the equipment and want to use it, go for it.

Although I have done no research on this, I would wager the majority of trans men is on the other side of the issue. Not looking forward to a wanted pregnancy, but being the victims of rape and staring at an unwanted one, needing to terminate it.

I don't want to say much on this issue because I am so wholly ignorant on it, and I don't want to talk out of my @$$ about stuff I don't know. But this realization has made me ask myself several questions... when we (cis women in the pro-choice movement) raise a ruckus about access to birth control, including emergency contraception, to teens and availability of EC for rape victims at hospitals, are we asking for that same access and availability for trans men? How are trans men treated at the ER after a sexual assault? Do they even seek medical assistance, or do they know how they will be treated by doctors, hospitals, domestic violence shelters, and therefore never get the help they desperately need?

How are we fighting for their rights?

What about trans women? Now, they can't get pregnant, but that doesn't mean they don't have reproductive health needs. The pro-choice movement is about granting women access to basic health care, about giving women control of their bodies. But so far the only issues we have addressed are cis women's reproductive needs and health care. What do trans women need? How can we include them in the fight?

When we talk about domestic violence, and helping women who are victims of DV, are we helping trans women? Or are we, again, looking only at cis women's needs, and only providing help and care to cis women?

How do we fix this?

All this was much simpler when I only looked up. I looked above me, at those that are oppressing me, and boy was I good at pointing fingers at others and pointing out their privilege. The other day, I royally shoved my cissexist foot into my privileged mouth. And for the first time I looked down, at those below me, those I was oppressing.

No, I didn't mean to oppress them. I didn't mean to exclude them. But that doesn't mean I wasn't doing it, and that doesn't mean its effects were not just as damaging as if I had been doing it on purpose.

I'm going to stop doing it. Because it was not a pretty feeling when I realized I was doing to others what others were doing to me. It was not a pretty feeling when I realized I, too, was part of the kyriarchy. And I don't want to be part of a movement that supports it, either.

*please tell me I'm using "meme" correctly. I don't really know what it means and I'm too lazy to look it up, so I'm hoping I've seen it enough times that I've correctly guessed the meaning from context. If I didn't, please don't make fun of me.

George Carlin on Abortion

I think I love this man.



EDIT: As much as I love almost everything you say here, Geroge, I do have to point one thing out. I know you're doing it for funnies and that clarifying your statement would kind of kill the joke, but lesbians can also be in need of an abortion. Sadly, they can get raped too, and probably do as a result of homophobic hate crimes.

Also, abortion is not always an elective procedure. A lesbian couple, or a homosexual couple, using a surrogate, can suffer complications during a pregnancy and need to terminate it. Let's not exclude homosexuals or deny their realities.

That said, I have to applaud your genius:

"When ... some of these other cardinals and bishops have experiences their
first pregnancies, and their first labor pains, and they've raised a couple of
children on minimum wage, then I'll be glad to hear what they have to say about
abortion."

ME TOO.

Trust women!

Dr. LeRoy Carhart should be your hero. And you should let him know.

Today and tomorrow, big stuff is happening in Nebraska. Quick background and run-down, courtesy of Rachel Maddow (who, apparently, is another one of my heroes...):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(PS: Rabid anti-choicers: assasination is not a "peacefully and legally" way of doing anything. FYI.)

Okay. I had a rant written, but I've ranted on this so many times before, it just gets old. So I deleted it.

Tonight and tomorrow, please pray for Dr. Carhart and his staff. Please pray for the women who will go to his clinic tomorrow, seeking his legal medical services, and will have to face these terrorists. (That's what they are: they are using terror, threats of violence and violence itself, to intimidate and oppress the doctors, nurses and patients.)

Also, though it almost hurts to write this, pray for those terrorists.

(And I'm going to end it there, because I'm about to start ranting again.)

Trust women. Stand up against anti-choice extremism.

"Make sense, not death threats"

(I really should have posted this last week, or whenever the 40th anniversary of Woodstock was... but I still want to post it and use my clever title. Because I'm so proud of my clever title.)

I don't really have any words for this whole health care debacle. I don't even watch the news (gave that up a long time ago; there was no point since they've stopped worrying about that whole "providing information" thing), but I do click on links via Twitter and Facebook. Maybe I shouldn't, especially when those links lead to debates with racist Republican uncles (don't worry, I've blocked him. Smartest move I've made in a long time).

This video really made me want to pack up and move to a more civilized country (it's not the best quality video; you can read a transcript of the show instead, if you prefer).

EDIT: And, of course, who could forget Joe The Plumber? Of course he has something intelligent and elocuent to add to the debate! How can people stand behind a party whose prominent members are resorting to death threats instead of discussing the facts and issues, like rational, intelligent, sane people?

The few debates I have unfortunately engaged in leave me dumbfounded, because the people opposed to health care reform MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL. I don't understand the words coming out of their mouths. I understand the individual words, but the way these people string them together... I'm baffled.

I should know better than to expect logic and reason from right-wingnuts, but they are really outdoing themselves this time. Case in point?

Michelle Bachmann:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I mean, SERIOUSLY? How can you possibly not realize what you just said???

Are they from another planet? Am I?

There are teeny-tiny rays of hope in this whole thing, like MomRising.org's Healthcare Truth Squad: Everyday Heroes, Busting Myths, Spreading the Truth!

It would be nice of we could talk about the actual points of the bills. If we could deal with facts, without yelling, and without assault rifles. Is that too much to ask of a civilized nation?

"I pledge allegiance to my uterus..."

"I pledge allegiance

to my uterus,

my sexual reproductive system,

and the rights it demands.

My body,

governed by ME,

undeniable,

with liberty and justice

for all women."

Sign NOW's Pledge for Reproductive Freedom!

Crisis Pregnancy Centers: spreading misinformation and religous misguidance on your tax dollar

Video stolen from RHRealityCheck.org. Please go here to read the full article.

These places make my blood boil. That's all I can say about that.